Historical Thriller Suspense

Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband. He suspected, also, that someone had been blackmailing her. Then, tragically, came the news that she had taken her own life with a drug overdose. But the evening post brought Roger one last fatal scrap of information. Unfortunately, before he could finish reading the letter, he was stabbed to death.

In the autumn of 1948, Iris Digby vanishes from her London home with her American diplomat husband and their two children. The world is shocked by the family’s sensational disappearance. Were they eliminated by the Soviet intelligence service? Or have the Digbys defected to Moscow with a trove of the West’s most vital secrets?

It's the time of year when the immortal army of the ancient king rides Watling Street and the dead become uneasy in their graves. Indeed, in the far north of Warwickshire, the villagers insist that one dead man returned to kill his only son. Now it's up to Sir Faucon de Ramis, the shire's new Crowner, to run the walking corpse to ground and put him back where he belongs.

In 1848, Dooley Monahan, son of struggling Iowa pioneers, went off to pick up a new milk cow. Young Dooley never came home. Now, nearly three decades later, Dooley Monahan has become an accidental legend, managing to plant a bullet in the chest of a dangerous outlaw. All Dooley really wants is to claim his reward at a bank in Phoenix and make his way north to a gold strike he read about in a newspaper. But fate has other plans.

A wealthy merchant has been murdered in his own home, and the suspect has fled to sanctuary in a local church. Enter Sir Faucon de Ramis, the king's new keeper of the peas, to solve the murder, assisted by his prickly secretary, Brother Edmund. This time, the hunt leads Sir Faucon into the upside-down world of a woman's trade where the merchant's wife owns the business - Unheard of! - only to discover he isn't the only one on the hunt.

Mountain man Smoke Jensen lives by the rules of the frontier. The first rule is: the strongest survive. But when bad breaks, bad weather and bad bovines back Smoke into a corner, he needs something to go right. Instead, he faces the kind of tough luck only a gun can beat....A contract to deliver 3000 head of cattle might just do the trick. But a renegade Cheyenne warrior uses an early winter blizzard to attack Smoke and his out-gunned cowboys.

When a lovely lady steps off a dusty stagecoach in Hangtree, the hardest heart skips a beat - and Sam Heller falls hard for her. What Hangtree doesn't know, however, is that Julia Pepperday isn't who she pretends to be. She is the daughter of the late Black Ear Skinner, a notorious outlaw who wanted his only child to have all the advantages in life and sent her back east. Black Ear Skinner's apple hasn't fallen far from the tree though. Julia has turned her back on the fancy boarding school and set her sights on Hangtree, because that's where Sam Heller has built a hard-earned fortune.

A woman and an iron horse put Matt Jensen in the crosshairs of a man out to reap a fortune with a new railroad through Paiute land. First, Cyrus Longacre steals the land. Next, he frames Matt Jensen for the murder of a beautiful woman. The final step is to keep Matt’s father and grandfather far away from Nevada Territory.... Preacher and Smoke are otherwise engaged — until some hired killers get their attention. Suddenly, the elder Jensens have a hunch young Matt is in trouble and together they’re riding to Paiute country.

In the Mongollon Rim country of Arizona, Frank Morgan walked into a blood feud between two powerful cattle barons. When the shooting stopped and the smoke cleared, Morgan had killed one of the men. Now, the dead man’s family wants revenge and the surviving rancher wants to silence Frank Morgan forever. Suddenly, the last gunfighter is on his own against a devil’s brew of murderous enemies. And amidst the lying and the killing is the beautiful young woman whose father Frank shot down - and one last thing worth dying to defend....

London: 1968. Liz Houghton is languishing as an obituary writer at a London newspaper when a young girl’s disappearance captivates the city. If Liz can break the story, it’s her way into the newsroom. She already has a scoop: Her best friend Marisa is a police officer who is assigned to the case. Liz follows Marisa to Dorset, where they make another disturbing discovery. Over two decades earlier, three girls disappeared while evacuating from London. One was found murdered in the woods near a train line. The other two were never seen again.

After former Justice Department agent Cotton Malone witnesses the theft of one of them, he learns from his old boss, Stephanie Nelle, that a private auction is about to be held where incriminating information on the president of Poland will be offered to the highest bidder - blackmail that both the United States and Russia want, but for vastly different reasons. The price of admission to that auction is one of the relics, so Malone is first sent to a castle in Poland to steal the Holy Lance, a 1,000-year-old spear sacred to not only Christians but to the Polish people.

In 1914 collisions between motor cars and horse-drawn carriages are an everyday occurrence on the streets of Paterson, New Jersey. But when an out-of-control driver smashes into a buggy driven by Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp, their lives change forever. Constance, the oldest, demands payment for the damages but quickly realizes that she is dealing with a madman.

A leper's daughter is found in the well of a dying hamlet, and the only suspect has fled into Feckenham Forest. But the sun is setting, and Warwickshire's sheriff is hunting his new crowner. That sends Sir Faucon de Ramis and Brother Edmund, his prickly clerk, racing for a nearby abbey only to meet the man he least wishes to see at the abbey gates. Before long, Faucon finds himself riding into the dark at Sir Alain's side as they hunt for yet another lost innocent.

In late 1756, as the British government collapses in the aftermath of the loss of Minorca, and the country and navy are thrown into political chaos, a small force of ships is sent to the West Indies to reinforce the Leeward Islands Squadron. Captain Edward Carlisle and his first lieutenant George Holbrooke are fresh from the Mediterranean and their capture of a powerful French man-of-war. Their new frigate Medina has orders to join a squadron commanded by a terminally ill commodore. Their mission: a near-suicidal assault on a strong Caribbean island fortress.

When iron clears leather, anything can happen. In Frank Morgan's case, a sudden duel with an assassin has left an innocent woman with a bullet in her back - and a friendship between Frank and a young Texas Ranger in tatters. Wanting to make up for his part in the tragedy, Frank rides to central Texas to help Ranger Tyler Beaumont put down the so-called Fence-Cutting War. But as big ranchers battle small ones, an outlaw gang has hellish plans of its own.

The time is World War II. The place is a brutal prison camp deep in Japanese-occupied territory. Here, within the seething mass of humanity, one man, an American corporal, seeks dominance over both captives and captors alike. His weapons are human courage, unblinking understanding of human weaknesses, and total willingness to exploit every opportunity to enlarge his power and corrupt or destroy anyone who stands in his path.

Amelia Prentice is recovering from the worst two years of her life. First her daughter and then her parents have died, leaving her without any surviving relatives. As she gets ready to put the family home, a vast Victorian house in Windsor, on the market, she fulfils her mother’s last request to clear out the attic, and she discovers a strange box of Victorian photographs.

The Holy Land, 1260. Josseran Sarrazini is chosen to escort the Pope's emissary on an embassy to the all-conquering Mongol horde in an effort to save all Christendom from destruction. But although he serves as a Templar warrior, Josseran is not all that he appears to be. Now they have to spend nine months in each other's company on the most dangerous and most inhospitable journey on the earth - across the legendary deserts of Persia, through the horrific black hurricanes of the Taklimakan, along the entire spider's web of the Silk Road to Khubilai Khan's legendary capital at Xanadu.

It's 1814, and Napoleon is hard-pressed to defend France from a combination of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Britain. Nor is he the only one in a quandary. Matthew Hervey, a young British cornet, is in a rather unusual situation. As far as he knows, it's highly irregular to be arrested on a battlefield after a successful action. Still, it's hardly the first time politics has interrupted war, and as Hervey's career progresses, he increasingly balances both, sometimes more successfully than others!

Summer 1924. On the eve of a glittering Society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again. Winter 1999. Grace Bradley, 98, one-time housemaid of Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet’s suicide. Ghosts awaken and memories, long consigned to the dark reaches of Grace’s mind, begin to sneak back through the cracks. A shocking secret threatens to emerge – something history has forgotten but Grace never could.